


In Mercy Like the Tide

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Alternia-Focused, Coercion, Gen, M/M, abandoned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-15
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The new Empress has been reforming the culling laws, but they're not outright abolished—Alternia's real undesirables, the ones that none of the highbloods find a use for, will still get dragged out to the culling fields and gutted after the auction is over. Their only hope right now is that somebody in the auction hall wants to buy them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Auction House

"At least, uh, it isn't culling," Tavros says, looking down at the shackles in his lap.

"Fuck you," Karkat says. His digestive sac feels like it's trying to turn itself inside out, and he'd probably be attacking the potential buyers if he weren't shackled himself. There are no fucking words for how not okay this is.

Tavros seems to shrink into his four-wheeled device a little further. "Um, sorry," he says.

Karkat hisses. "Would you fucking cut that out!" he says. The new Empress has been reforming the culling laws, but they're not outright abolished—Alternia's real undesirables, the ones that none of the highbloods find a use for, will still get dragged out to the culling fields and gutted after the auction is over. Their only hope right now is that somebody in the auction hall wants to buy them, and Tavros doesn't have good odds. "Just...stop _cringing_ so much. You don't want them to think you're that worthless, do you?"

"Right, I, okay," Tavros says. He'd be more convincing if his voice didn't shake. "Thanks, Karkat."

"Whatever," Karkat says. He's watching the auction block, where the first lowblood is being brought up for bid now.

Most of the trolls being auctioned off are pretty obvious culling cases—physically damaged like Tavros, or else orphaned and feral, fighting their chains and hissing at the auctioneer. Karkat shouldn't be here. He's stable, he's fit, he's managed to survive to adulthood on the grueling endurance test of Alternia's surface. He's a perfectly functional young adult troll and _ought_ to be working out his relationships and his military career and his own fucking future.

But last month he got caught up in a stupid fight in public, where somebody saw him bleed.

Fucking genetics. Shitmunching brainless mother grub, crapping out a bright-red-blooded little mutant in the first place. Nooklicking maggot-humping troll society in general, so fucking obsessed with the fucking _hemospectrum_ , as if bluer blood ever made anybody more noble instead of just more psychopathic.

One of the ferals gets sold to a nasty-looking blueblood in the dragonhide armor of an archeviscerator. Karkat wonders if she's destined for anything better than just being hunted down and shot for sport.

Then the next troll gets dragged up there, and Karkat stops worrying about the feral: this time it's Sollux, the poor stupid fuck, stumbling a little like he's been sopored, his mismatched glasses askew. The drones probably caught him during a bad swing and decided his instability wasn't fit to pass on. "Stupid, pitiful bastard," Karkat mutters, fists clenched tight enough that his claws feel like they're gouging holes in his palms.

Tavros glances over at him, but Karkat ignores him.

A woman in the rose-and-gold livery of the Empress bids for Sollux, and he goes fast. It looks like a lot of the other highbloods don't want to bid against the imperial house. Too obvious a challenge to her authority, or something. That shouldn't be too bad, right? Working in the Empress's household? She's supposed to be a lot less bloodthirsty than her predecessor. Maybe he'll do okay there, if he can just meet somebody who knows how to deal with his stupid moods.

As Sollux gets dragged down off the podium, he glances back toward Karkat. For a second it feels like the ghost of a hand punches playfully at Karkat's shoulder, and Karkat sucks at reading lips but he's pretty sure he doesn't need to actually read them to guess what Sollux is saying right now: _Top that, fuckass_.

"You insufferable douche," Karkat says, and squeezes his eyes shut so they won't sting so much.

He doesn't know any of the next three trolls who go up to bid—two sold, one dragged off snarling and frothing at the mouth—and then it's Tavros's turn. Karkat tries to be ready for the worst. Tavros was a shitty troll even before the accident that left him crippled, and now he's both damaged _and_ ridiculously spineless.

Highbloods turn out to be even more fucked up than Karkat realized, though. There's a small bidding war for Tavros, between some musclebound creeper with a broken horn and a grinning psycho with a robotic arm. The bids get outrageous, making some of the other assholes in the audience start cheering as Tavros squirms in his seat and stares at the bidders in pure terror.

Just as it's looking like it might turn ugly—if there's a riot in the auction hall, what are Karkat's odds of getting away?—the psycho's arm starts to freak out on her, spitting sparks and twitching wildly like it's turning on her. She flips out, trying to get it under control, and the other guy wins the auction while she's distracted.

Tavros looks completely terrified, watching the guy come down to claim him. The drones buzz back and forth like they can't figure out how to get Tavros and his four-wheel device down to audience level, but the buyer looks calm about it. He beckons for Tavros to come closer, and Tavros rolls up to the edge of the platform. Karkat braces himself to watch the blueblood drag Tavros down out of the chair—but instead the guy reaches up and takes hold of the four-wheel device's frame. Metal creaks, and he just picks up the whole thing, with Tavros still sitting in it—and gripping the armrests for dear life—and sets it down at floor level.

Fuck. Tavros is doomed, isn't he?

Karkat doesn't have time to worry about that right now, though. The auctioneer is beckoning for him, and then a drone is marching him forward as the auctioneer tells the highbloods that the rumors they've heard are true, that they have a mutant to offer, a blood color no other troll can match. That gets the crowd going, and Karkat blushes hot with anger. Treat him like a fucking novelty, will they? They'll be lucky if he doesn't kill whatever shithead buys him and run, and—

Then what? Be a fugitive for the rest of his (nasty, brutish, short) life? He sags a little, glaring out past the crowd into the dark at the back of the hall. He needs to get control of himself. He won't put on any more of a stupid show for them than he has to.

Bidding goes pretty well, he guesses. It sounds like at least some of these putrid bulgehuffers are excited about it. He doesn't really watch the bidders. Fuck them, anyway. It's just a game for them, isn't it?

This is better than culling, though. Tavros was right about that. The drones' pikes are vicious, jagged and sharp. Whoever makes the winning bid, they'll keep those sharp blades from scattering his guts for scavengers. That's...that's something.

He doesn't get a really good look at his buyer until the guy comes swaggering down to the front to pick him up, and then Karkat makes two observations pretty much simultaneously: one, he's been bought by a seadweller; two, he's been bought by a raging, grubreaming douche.

"Wwell?" the guy says. "Get dowwn here."

Easy for him to say. Karkat climbs down from the platform awkwardly, the stupid shackles in his way. He stands there glaring. The douche looks weirdly pleased with him, like he's a new toy or an exotic fucking pet.

"On your knees, slavve," the douche says, and Karkat bites down hard on his lip so he won't have a snickering fit at the accent. The douche is beckoning one of the drones over. "Removve his shackles."

The drone bows, joints whirring. It extends metal claws to grasp the lock on Karkat's shackles, and it starts to speak as it does so. "Her Imperial Condescension, in glory like the storm, in mercy like the tide, has spared you the culling you deserve." The words must have been written for it. _In glory like the storm?_ No way a drone came up with that. "This is a suspension of your sentence, not a pardon. Should you flee the custody of," brief pause as the drone accesses its memory banks, "Lord Ampora, you may be culled on sight by any drone or any citizen. Acknowledge."

Karkat's claws fit into the already-sore welts in his palms way too easily. "I acknowledge," he grits out.

The shackles come off his wrists, then off his ankles. Douchelord Ampora grins like a wriggler on Twelfth Perigee's Eve. "Come on," he says. "Followw me."


	2. Like Oxygen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't fuck this up, Vantas. It only counts as not getting culled if you don't provoke the fishmonster into killing you himself.

The big fishy creep puts a collar and leash on him before they leave the auction house. "It's temporary," he says to Karkat's scowl. "I don't wwanna use stuff like this to control you."

"Yeah," Karkat says. "Consider me reassured."

"It's true," Ampora says, and he meets Karkat's eyes solidly and oh _there's_ the glittery psychotic fuck no that the seadwellers are so famous for. "Wwhat kinda master wwould I be if I had to keep a slavve in line with cheap shit like that?"

Karkat chews on his tongue so he won't say anything stupid. His mouth is going to be shredded into grubloaf by sunrise at this rate.

Ampora drags him out of the auction house and down to the docks—of course they're going to the docks, the asshole is a seadweller, he probably lives in some ridiculous undersea _grotto_ or something oh fuck is this really better than culling. Karkat slows down a little without even meaning to, and Ampora jerks on his leash to make him keep following. He stumbles, getting his feet back under him just as they come up to the biggest, most overblown ship in the harbor.

"Impressivve, isn't it?" Ampora says smugly.

"I guess," Karkat says. It is, even if he doesn't want to admit it, this big black ship with cannons and shit, and Ampora's jagged caste sign on the main sail. Some fuckers just don't know how good they have it. He imagines what it would be like if Sollux were here. He's pretty sure Sollux would have something bitchy to say about the size of that ship and the lengths some trolls need to go to compensate for their natural inadequacies.

"Wwhat's so fuckin funny?" Ampora asks.

Karkat ducks his head, wiping the smirk off his face. "Nothing," he says. Don't fuck this up, Vantas. It only counts as not getting culled if you don't provoke the fishmonster into killing you himself.

"That's wwhat I thought," Ampora says. "Come on."

He brings Karkat on board and orders the ship out of the harbor—despite all the historical pirate trappings, the ship runs on a pretty modern system, a lot of its functions automated. Karkat revises his mental estimation of Ampora's power, and attendant doucheragness, up a few more notches.

Steering the ship out of the harbor still takes attention. Ampora drops Karkat's leash and more or less ignores him in favor of taking the ship's wheel. He probably thinks he cuts a dashing figure, standing there silhouetted against the black sky, cape billowing around him, hands flashing with jewelry as he spins the wheel. Maybe, Karkat admits grudgingly, it would be pretty effective on somebody who wasn't currently resentful of the fact that high and mighty Lord Ampora owns his mutant carcass.

Karkat takes a deep breath, tasting salt on the air as they push slowly out to sea. The forgotten leash dangles against his chest, swaying a little. Maybe he's not doing himself any favors, dwelling on it. He can't undo what's happened. He's not the only one it's happened to. He's really not even the worst off of them. All he can do now is learn to live with it.

They get far enough out that the harbor is just a little blotch of glowing lights on the horizon, far enough that all Karkat can see nearby is black sky, black water, and the distant lightning-flecked shapes of clouds. It's eerie. He might be shivering just a little bit by the time Ampora turns away from the wheel and comes swaggering over with his fancy-ass cape billowing behind him. Maybe the point of the cape is to point out how easily he keeps his balance on deck—Karkat's definitely in no shape to be prancing around, with the way the ship moves.

"Alright," Ampora says, "I wwon't havve to wworry about that again until wwe're almost there, so how about wwe get started?" Then he pins Karkat to the wall.

"Whoah, fucking hold on," Karkat protests, struggling instinctively. "You can't just—"

"Can't I?" Ampora demands. His claws dig into Karkat's arms. "You think you get to tell me that?"

Fuck fuck fuck. "No," Karkat says. He closes his eyes. "Sorry. I'm...not used to this yet."

"You wwill be," Ampora says. It sounds like a threat. Karkat nods without opening his eyes. If he fought out here, even if he won, he doesn't know how to sail. He'd be stranded until the ship crashed or somebody found him. Or until he starved to death. Catering to Ampora's demands sounds better than that.

"Okay," he says. "Right. Sorry."

Ampora takes Karkat's chin in his hand, and Karkat tries not to tense, and then it goes where he thinks it will: Ampora kisses him. It's rough, demanding, but somehow less blackrom than Karkat expected. Ampora kisses with more tongue than teeth, licking, tasting him. Maybe he's wondering if a mutant will taste different than an ordinary troll. Karkat holds still, shivering, letting it happen.

"You're not getting into it," Ampora complains against his mouth.

Fuck, what a douche. Anger makes Karkat want to bite, hard, but he's watched enough tearjerkers to know how badly a black romance goes when all the power is on one side. He opens his mouth and lets Ampora in, trying to fight down the frustration, the helpless bitter feeling at how fucking _unfair_ this is—fairness is make-believe shit for wrigglers, and he's too old for that now. Ampora's teeth cut his lip, just a little, not like either of them is really trying.

A minute later Ampora pulls back, licking that stinging cut as he goes. "I guess you don't havve much motivvation," he says, and the cool, bored tone in his voice makes Karkat's eyes snap back open. Shit. Yes. That's the holy shit danger look again. "Bet I can fix that."

"What—no," Karkat says immediately, but Ampora grabs him by the leash and yanks, dragging him off-balance. Karkat flails when they get closer to the deck rail, grabbing at Ampora's shoulders because shit shit shit he doesn't want to get thrown over—and it doesn't _help_ , because Ampora just grins like the shark-faced douche he is and goes over the side with him.

Karkat gets about half a breath of good air and then they hit the water, cold and dark, swallowing them up. Karkat thrashes, trying to get back to the surface, but Ampora the nookbiting biledouche is dragging him deeper. He never learned to swim, can't even struggle for long because he just doesn't have the fucking air. His lungs burn and his head spins, and he claws at Ampora's arm helplessly. Ampora just _watches_ him, eyes glowing in the dark water. Karkat claws at his throat— _I need air, you worthless loadstain_ —but Ampora doesn't let him go. His lungs convulse and he can't help exhaling, a cascade of little bubbles rushing upward the way he can't, even though that's going to make the need for air even worse.

Ampora glides closer and kisses him again, of all fucking things, but then fuck he's breathing air into Karkat's mouth and Karkat sucks that up greedily. It feels thin and it tastes weird but it's _air_ , and that puts him another couple of minutes away from dying. Karkat clings to Ampora despite himself, because fuck it's amazing how fast pride goes out the window when you're worrying about oxygen. Ampora smiles, snaking an arm around Karkat's waist and kicking, and they rise toward the surface.

The water parts above Karkat's head and he takes a huge, gasping breath, then a second one. Spots swim in front of his eyes. "You sick fuck!" he blurts. "You—"

"Try again," Ampora says, and drags him back under.

This time Karkat is sputtering and choking almost immediately, his mouth full of water. He can't get free of Ampora's grip to head for the surface, so instead he leans in closer—that's what Ampora wants, isn't it? Another desperate let-me-live kiss?

The douchebag makes him work for it, struggling and flailing until he's really almost sure he's about to die, until that secondhand breath is the thing he wants more than anything else in the fucking world. _Then_ he finally gets it, and his grip on Ampora's shirt is weak but fuck, fuck, he can't make himself let go.

They surface, and Karkat can feel the tension in Ampora's body like he's going to move again, pleads, "Don't—"

And then they're diving again, back down into the water. Karkat claws at Ampora weakly, desperate, and he thinks maybe the show of weakness is actually working? Because Ampora kisses breath back into his lungs faster that time, and brings him up to the surface only a few miserable seconds after that.

This time Karkat makes sure the first word out of his mouth is, "Please." That keeps them afloat for a minute, and he gulps air, his lungs aching. "Please, no more, I'm sorry, I won't fight you anymore."

"That's a little better," Ampora says. They bob on the surface of the water, tangled together. "Keep goin, lemme hear it."

"Please let me back on the ship," Karkat says. "I'm sorry for pissing you off." Wait, fuck, he's pretty sure he knows where Ampora wants this to go. "Please let me make it up to you."

Predictably, Ampora makes a little pleased noise at that one. "I guess wwe could do that," he says. He strokes Karkat's stomach slowly. "Try that again wwith a little more respect."

None of this is going to go easily, is it? "Please let me make it up to you, _sir_ ," Karkat grits out. "...Please let your humble slave apologize to you properly."

"There wwe go," Ampora says smugly. "Hold still." He tightens his grip around Karkat's middle and kicks, entirely too comfortable in the water, bringing them back to the ship. There's a ladder there, and Ampora lets Karkat climb it, shaky-limbed and shivering, to collapse on the deck.

The ship rocks on the waves, and that still sucks, and now that Karkat is wet it's _cold_ out here, but he can fucking breathe. It's amazing how much the little things matter once you stop taking them for granted.

Ampora looms over him, and Karkat doesn't look up. "Come on," Ampora says. "Let's get you outta those wwet things."

 _Fuck_ , what a douche. Karkat nods. "Yes, sir."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [blingkat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/188737) by [hoarous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoarous/pseuds/hoarous)




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